


Anthropomorphism

by kurushi



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-20
Updated: 2008-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-30 10:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurushi/pseuds/kurushi
Summary: Sarah is studying at university in Australia.  She tells a story to a friend from her residence hall about an anthropomorphic personification she once met.This story is told from two chronological perspectives, and has not been beta-ed.  Concrit is highly welcome, and I hope that the story itself is coherent.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from banshee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Underground](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Underground_\(Labyrinth_archive\)) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Underground’s collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/underground/profile).
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

_It was dark. Sarah could hear the screams all around her, as she placed her hand against the wall of the Labyrinth. She felt it, solid, rough, beneath her fingertips. Then, with a heartbreaking push, she thrust her arms out. They stretched at the fabric of the Underground for a moment, and then she felt, within the rough rubbery half-truth, a handhold. She grabbed at it, and pulled._

  


_He didn't know, what she was doing. She had to do it. But when she saw him, running around the corner, his eyes widened in confusion and disbelief and pain, she choked. Almost gave up, right then._

  


_But she had to finish it, now, before she was too weak to try again. Sarah pulled, and pulled, and pulled. He didn't scream, though she knew it hurt him; it was burning hot against her hands, against her whole body now. The energy felt like cold fire on her skin. It undoubtebly felt worse inside his... body? He didn't have a body, anymore. Inside his soul, perhaps._

  


_And then it was quiet. She fell, exhausted, onto the carpet of her bedroom. The world felt unnaturally solid and heavy compared to the world she'd just destroyed. But she had to check, right now. She'd written it, Toby had trusted in it, and if it had worked he would be there._

  


_She stood, still shaky from her exertions, and moved over to her computer. If she was right, then he'd be there, online. Because they'd met, years ago, and they'd catch up online, every Wednesday night. He'd be there, unless she'd failed._

  


_He wasn't there. She blinked, and rebooted. Perhaps it had frozen. But it hadn't. Fuck! Well, maybe he was late. Maybe his parents were making him do chores, or pack. He'd saved up money, he was coming to visit her next month. For a year, he was going to stay here, with her. He'd promised, in her story._

  


_And if it had worked, he would be there. Still, maybe in ten minutes. Give it ten mintues, she told herself. Ten minutes, and he'd be there, for sure. Or the next, maybe. It's only ten minutes, and it'd be a shame to miss him for a simple ten minutes..._

  


_It was so cold. So, she'd failed. But maybe things were just back to normal? Maybe he was still there. She turned to her dresser, and called out their names, all of them that she remembered. There was no answer, so she turned back to her computer screen and stared blankly at the electric blaring buzz._

  


_White noise, with nobody online. She began whispering his name, at first. But nobody was home, they'd taken Toby interstate for one of Dad's contracting jobs, he was there for the month, and she'd stayed behind. Because he'd been going to arrive, so she'd stayed._

  


_And he was never coming, never answering her, and she was falling to the carpet and crying and aching. The pressure of tears was building up in her brain faster than they could spill down her face, and her head ached with the tension. She was scratching at her legs, her hair. Restless, trying to get out of her skin. She had to have enough energy left to call him. If she put enough energy in, enough faith, she'd be able to bring him back._

  


_She called his name, as loud as she could, over and over again, until she..._

  


“SARAH!”

  


There were hands beating at her door, frantic. Sarah sat up, feeling displaced and disoriented. It was muggily, awfully hot, and her head and throat hurt. She was in her tiny, cramped cupboard or a room. It was humid, hot, and the creaking sounds of hundreds of students sleeping, walking, living around her were punctuated by the soft susurrus of conversation from those who sat around smoking on the benches between B block and the kitchen complex.

  


And there was someone at her door? Ah, him, of course. He sounded pissed. She took a deep drink of water from the cup beside her bed and opened the door to her tiny room.

  


He was standing in front of the door, hands raised. They were red from beating on the wood, and as he stood there in outrageous shock, someone shuffled down the corridor behind him, past him, in a ragged dressing gown, carrying a mug. She stared into his eyes, and watched his as they stared into hers. She could see that they were wild with something other than anger, and realised that she'd been projecting again; that she'd been expecting _him_ and not just him. Jared, who was her age, and had moved across the ocean like her, to study in Australia. He, entirely by coincidence, happened to be so tall, have soft white-blonde hair, and crazy mismatched eyes.

  


Such beautiful eyes.

  


“Sarah, are you alright?”

  


She nodded, or tried to, at least. Her head was still foggy and heavy, and her muscles moved slowly as if she was in treacle. But he'd been there since the start, over a week ago. He knew about the nightmares, whether or not her body followed her directions at this time of night. He gently pushed her back inside her room, followed her, and shut the door. He led her to her own thin bed, and sat down first. Pulled her up between his legs until she lay stretched out, pillowed against his chest. He was smaller, than she'd thought he would turn out, in the end. He was only a little taller than she was. His legs and arms were still too long, in the way of teenagers, and he seemed to flow in a cacophany of knees and knobbly bits whenever he walked.

  


His hair, which he'd been growing out since high school, he said, reached halfway down his back in a straight ponytail. He was wearing, that night, his purple reading glasses. So he'd been studying. He was serious, and intelligent, and studious. He spent all night reading, almost. He was doing much better in Traditional Grammar than she was.

  


Sarah felt a tug on her ear; he wanted to talk. About her dreams, about...

  


He had caught onto the greek alphabet sooner than she, and he'd helped her when she got the wriggly bits on the sd and ks sounding ones... and if she just closed her eyes, laid back against him, and focused on these things, and didn't answer when he asked, she might make it through the night.

  


“Sarah? I know that you don't want to talk about it, alright. I just can't help feel a bit responsible. I mean, you _do _wake up nearly every night screaming my name out as if you were witnessing the visitation of a Lovecraftian god, so I feel that I've had some role at least in the horrors.”

  


She ignored him, and thought about omicron. It was a nice, friendly, neat little letter. Just a circle. simple and perfect and so easy to draw.

  


“Sarah? Please, I just want to know that it's not me, okay? I want to know that if I could possibly help at all, you'd tell me. Because when I come in here, and hold you, you're okay. Well, alright, not okay in the normal sense, but you can sleep it off easily.”

  


He slowly patted her head with his hand, sighing.

  


“Do you want me to read you a story?” He asked, after a few long moments of silence. She saw his hand reaching out to a thin red book that was beside the phone and cup on her bedside table, and frowned. He knew she didn't want him to read that one. They never read that one.

  


“_Scene: Dark castle, grey. A young woman stands in tattered rags beside a cradle as a finely dressed king and queen stand together stage right...”_

  


Sarah lifted her arm, still slow from sleep, and pushed his hand, holding the book, away to the side.

  


“Once upon a time, there was a Promise,” She began, “Between a young girl and a celestial being. Well, not really a celestial being; he was a collective hallucination, but in the wording of their promise, he insisted upon the phrase 'celestial being' as being nicer for stories than 'hallucination'...”

  


He interrupted, leaning again to put the red book back on the table.

  


“So is this a new story? I'm a bit confused.”

  


She frowned, and stared deliberately at her small built-in shelving, focusing on the spines of her textbooks.

  


“No. It's the same story, but told in a different way. Sometimes, you need to jump in halfway along instead of at the very beginning, because by all rights you can get stuck in beginnings. In finding the characters. Where is a beginning, anyway? When things start happening? When people are born?

  


“No, really it's best to start at a very important point in the story, and then let the important things come by of their own accord, from the past and the future. So that everything can weave together and the story can make sense.

  


“Since one of our main characters is a 'celestial being', we need to start at the promise. But to understand the promise, really, I need to explain about the nature of death, god, angels, Santa and Peter Pan and everything.”

  


He laughed against her back, and she felt herself relaxing. Now that she'd comitted to telling the story, it was easy to lie back and dissolve into the narrative. She told it like a fable, like something that had happened to somebody else.

  


“An anthropomorphic personification,” she began,

  


“Oh, like in Discworld?” He laughed.

  


“Well, yes, I suppose so. That is a bit funny, in itself... Now stop ruining the narrative! It needs to flow, like, er... well, like a story. So, once upon a time, there was a young girl. She met an anthropomorphic personification,”

  


“Or celestial being,” He interjected.

  


She elbowed him, awkwardly because of her position in his lap, and kept speaking.

  


“And he told her about himself, and about the need for humans to have faith in his sort of entity. That the more faith there was in the world for each entity, the more powerful they were. And so God, and Satan, Angels and Buddha and Santa Claus were all more powerful than he was. Because although he had once, long ago, been very famous and powerful, now only echoes of his story and mythos were passed down in the form of daydreams and fables.

  


“But, unlike genies or Peter Pan, or even ghosts, there was nobody in the world for very many years who truly believed in him. He existed in limbo, until one day a little girl came along. She read the stories and felt true faith stir. She closed her eyes and dreamt, and brought him back from the dark oblivion of limbo. Into the world, his own world. Her mind, her faith, was so huge that within seconds he not only had himself back, but a universe of possibilities and creatures.

  


“And he followed the rules she had made for him. He did everything that she asked, in a way...”

  


“_In _a _way?!”_

  


She froze, the tone of his voice suddenly very familiar.

  


“Sarah, the story?”

  


“Oh, ah, right. So they... parted... on not so friendly terms, and didn't see each other again for some years. Then one day, he approached her and asked for a favour. After a few moments, for big decisions often only need a moment's thought, she agreed.”

  


He shifted uncomfortably against her back.

  


“I'm still confused, Sarah. So was this agreement the promise?”

  


She laughed, a short, bitter bark. Her throat felt sore.

  


“No, the agreement led to the reasons behind the promise. The story goes; Once upon a time, there was a promise, between a celestial being and a young girl. They made the promise because of a secret that nobody knew. Because, you see, the Goblin King had fallen in love with her, and had given her special powers...”


	2. Chapter 1

Sarah lay on her stomach on her bed, sketching. She wasn't an artist, by any means, but she'd always sketched absently in class. She'd sketched the goblins, the fireys, Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus. She'd sketched the worm, Ambrosius, and even the fairies. but she'd never sketched him. So that day, when she tried to, she found it frustrating.

  


His hair was lopsided, for a start. His boots were too long, and the wrong shape. She'd left an embarrassed little blank spot where his bits were. She cursed herself, because as a high-school graduate she was, by far, old enough to have seen sex and porn and naked penises. Just, this one was different. Special.

  


Fuck. Did she really just phrase it like that? No, no. She had to break that thought cycle, because she'd agreed to commit to this reworking of his identity. As the only person to believe in the Goblin King, Sarah had come into considerable power. For he, an anthropomorphic personification, was formed by her faith and dreams. When he'd come to meet her, when she'd felt abandoned and lost and forgotten, drenched with rain and cold, she'd agreed. She'd needed that sense of purpose, because College and friends and hope had, more or less, rinsed itself down the drain.

  


Well, not College, but it had felt like it at the time, and she hadn't really sent off any applications since then, so it was a moot point now. Basically, she'd felt the need to _do_ something, anything. To be solid and real again, and whole. So she'd jumped at the chance to realise her younger daydreams, and to validate herself through action.

  


But, when it came down to things, getting rid of the Goblin King's “cereal-box and mullet” as he called them, was tough. She had to believe, really believe, that his hair was no longer a stupid crappy mullet shape. She had to have faith in his... _fuck._

  


If the arse had just seen to recruiting faithful kids, then she wouldn't be here, on her final summer break, trying to visualise his scrotum and feeling slightly wrong deep down in her gut.

  


Part of it was guilt, she knew. She'd enforced all of her teenage fantasies onto him. Love, music, fairytale romance, and a foggy, half-formed idea of masculinity and sex. She'd made him love her. So she had to fix it, free him. Because being made to, forced into love, at least in Sarah's mind, was far worse than the most brutal rape, and to force someone into that was a more selfish act than she'd ever imagined.

  


So she was here, on her bed, feeling stupidly young and raw and small, trying to sketch pictures, badly at that, of a Goblin King with tidier hair and a slightly more realistic crotch. Only she knew, the same way that one knows of the colour blue, or how despite losing most memories of sight, scent, touch, and sounds, one will always know that there was a mother. Warm, without definition. She knew that unless she knew he had changed, really changed, knew in that same way deep down between her gut and her feet, that her faith – that world moving faith that had remade the Labyrinth and pushed the stuff of dreams around into the shapes of goblins and muck and walls and fireys...

  


She knew that unless she felt it true, knowing so deep that it transcends faith, that no matter how many shitty sketches she drew she would never be able to keep her word.

  


She swore, and scrunched up her paper again, throwing it onto her pile on the floor. She wasn't going to be able to do it, not really. Not with her head all over the place like this. She stretched out on her back, trying not to remember the round-in-circles conversations she'd had with Hoggle about the nature of their existence. Did she really have faith in all of them, or had her matter-of-fact faith in the Goblin King himself just twisted his base matter, whatever of him was left behind in stasis after his last faithful child had gone, into the entire labyrinths, it's denizens, and the plant matter they consumed? And, if Hoggle and Ludo and everyone were all a part of it, no wonder that they loved Sarah.

  


Because she thought it so, so it was.

  


She'd clung to the idea, after that one awful day of disbelief at school, that the Labyrinth was real. That her friends _were_ real, that they loved her for who she was...

  


She was some sick, twisted goddess, almost. She pulled the entire world of the Labyrinth into being, and created people who were her true friends, or so she had thought. But what if they were only her concept of friendship? What if, outside of their interactions with her, they were only half alive? Or, what if they were nothing? If they only existed in the negative space of her psyche?

  


Hoggle had reassured her, that if he was a jumbled up and pinched off, half-aware part of Jareth's essence, and he'd wiggled his eyebrows and made dirty jokes until she'd laughed and hit him with a pillow, then he was still an entity, but one who was forced to love her.

  


Which drove away all the existentialist bullcrap and brought her right back to the main dilemma. She'd believed so strongly in a King and in Challenges and Comrades in Arms, and she'd just willed them into being. Into loving. So, aside from the matter of their love being a synthetic empty meaningless pile of shit, she was in the uncomfortable place of responsibility.

  


All of her dreams, her hopes, her fantasies, had created an odd, abusive, coercive mental slavery of an unfathomable creature who was of the same stuff as the gods.

  


She'd been ill, when she'd first thought through it all. She'd sat in the bathroom, wiped her mouth of the burning disgusting acid taste, and then staggered bonelessly into the shower. She'd sat in the bottom, feet poked into the corners of the tiles until her feet hurt, and she'd closed her eyes tight and tried to burn the taste out of her mouth.

  


She'd tried to wash it all off, but when she'd returned to her room, Hoggle was sitting on her bed, twiddling nervously and guiltily with a tassled cushion. She felt, from the way he avoided her gaze, that she still stank of it.

  


“I'm sorry, Sarah...” He'd begun, but then he'd seen her face and somehow, probably that faithful-to-false-god connection, he'd known. He took her hand, gently, and waited until her aching eyes met his.

  


“Sarah, listen to me. Forget all that, and let Jareth in. He can't come out here again until you call him.”

  


“He... wha?” Sarah couldn't think, at that point. She sat down on the bed beside him and pushed her fingers in at her eyes. She'd cried so much, recently, but she still didn't feel used to it. Her eyes felt swollen and red and raw, as if the tears had been torn rather than cried out. She pushed the word around in her head. Tear, torn. Sounded to different, spelt so same. She was shaking.

  


“Sarah, please!”

  


“Fuck, fine, Jareth. Don't know why I need him, don't know why I have to fucking _call _him after all this!”

  


And then there were two hands on her back, Hoggle's small gnarled one, and Jareth's larger, gloved one.

  


“Shh.” He'd said, or shh-ed, first, softly, rubbing her back until her headache subsided and the world resolved itself again into her room.

  


“Sarah, please don't get stuck in any cyclical mental conversations. If we get stuck in a loop of cause and effect, you'll never be able to free me, because I'll be stuck here, forever.”

  


She held onto the bed and stared down at the carpet.

  


“I don't know what makes you think that I'm doing that.” She toed the floor and turned to Hoggle accusingly.

  


“I didn't tell him nothing!”

  


Jareth sighed and stood to move and look thoughtfully about her room.

  


“I _have_ had a few years with nothing to do save watch you from my prison, you know. I _know_ you, Sarah, I know how you think. And I know that thinking like that, right now, is not what you should be doing.”

  


“Oh?” She stood too, because it seemed wrong, to sit there forlorn and dejected with a king of goblins in her room. “Well, since you seem to be so all-knowing, what should I be doing?”

  


He eyed off her stuffed toys and began to inspect her bookshelf, pulling out books and piling them in his arms.

  


“You should be researching. Thinking long and hard about what you added to me, to my realm, and what parts of me that were already there. Try to conceptualise things, and then the images should follow on from that. Build up an image of me in your head, as we interact, letting it change. You know, and one day I'll wake up, and you won't be imposing the mullet, and I'll actually be able to brush my hair or something.”

  


She watched as he hefted a pile of her favourite books in his arms and nodded.

  


“I'll be off, then.”

  


“What? What do you mean, off then? Where are you taking my books?”

  


“Oh, I thought I'd borrow them. It's boring being locked up, and I've only gotten glimpses of these. I wanna see how they end. I'd have asked, I suppose, only you're still assuming that I'm this arrogant fuckwit.” He shrugged, and faded from sight.

  


She stared at the empty spaces on her bookshelves, and flung her hands up in the air. This didn't make sense, not any of it at all. But when he'd taken her into the Labyrinth, when she'd seen the empty void fill itself as she knew, knew that there was more to the Labyrinth than the parts that she'd travelled in, more goblins than she'd seen, more little worms and strange beings, she'd seen them spring up as if they'd been pulled into existence by her thoughts alone.

  


Which, of course, they had. Fuck. Swearing didn't achieve much in her head, but it felt good. It felt like she was doing something instead of just whirling around in frustrating circles and trying not to think about the Goblin King's bits.

  


She was technically babysitting Toby, too, since their parents were out. She didn't like to call it babysitting, because he was her brother. Who gets called in to babysit their own sibling? Siblings just kinda hung out together.

  


She could hear his soft footsteps in the hall now. He was allowed to wander around upstairs provided that the plastic gates were wedged solidly in the end of the hall, so that he couldn't reach the bannister and fall over. Shit, and Hoggle was still there, watching her with concern.

  


“Hoggle, get out of here, now!”

  


But it was too late, because as Hoggle faded slowly from her sight, Toby exclaimed and began to run awkwardly towards her bed. When Hoggle disappeared, he made a serious humph of disgust and turned to Sarah, hands at his waist. He'd been watching one of the countless film versions of Peter Pan recently, over and over again.

  


He stood there, and didn't cry, but just watched her. Toby was a confusing four-year old, compared to others, or at least Sarah thought so. He was very silent at times. He seemed to read situations a lot more deeply than others his age. Not that Sarah had been around many kids his age, admittedly.

  


“Sarah, who was that?”

  


When she didn't answer, just watched him watching her, taking in how his eyes moved to the corner of her room, and the plastic bin from which her broken music box still hadn't been cleaned out, he rethought his position and looked sternly into her eyes.

  


“I'm bored,” He announced after a long pause. He smiled cockily then, in that synthesised and clumsy way that kids accidentally fall into when play-acting. His eyes were still very serious, but he was laughing.

  


“Come on, tell me a story or something. Oh, and I want a hot chocolate!” He nodded emphatically, and wandered down the hall chattering loudly.

  


“I remember you made that stuff from that recipe you found, real Klah, like in those girly fantasy books you read. Why don't we make that, and you can tell me about the Goblin King again...”

  


He reached the gate and tapped it ceremoniously as she followed, dazed and still frustrated. But then, as she was bending to release the gate and pick Toby up for the trip downstairs, she froze.

  


“Do you believe in the Goblin King, Toby?”

  


He laughed and tugged at her hair as they descended.

  


“Of course I do, Sarah! You're always on at me to not believe in him that I know he's real. I just _know _it!”

  


She waved away his demands for a story when they reached the kitchen, telling Toby that he'd just have to wait. Until there was hot chocolate, there would be no story. Stories had to happen over hot chocolate, not before, she reasoned aloud.

  


When she was ready, and her doubts were beginning to make her stomach flutter, she sat down with Toby in the living room and they sipped their drinks. Nice, warm between the hands. The sky was still light outside, heading towards twilight.

  


“So I lied, Toby. He's real.”

  


“Aha! I KNEW IT, I...”

  


Sarah held a hand up, and stared him down.

  


“I won't allow interruptions, little jackal. Now drink your horrifically sugared beverage and let me tell the story properly. Even if it isn't a story, not really,”

  


She took a deep breath. She felt as if all the goblins and all the other citizens of the Labyrinth were lying in the dark corners of the house, waiting between the walls, hanging on her words. Their fate, in a way, could depend on what she said next. On what Toby believed out of it.

  


“So for one, he's not that old. He's about my age, Toby. Long blonde hair, and just a little taller than I am. He has fancy clothes for when he's putting people through the Labyrinth, but the rest of the time he wears normal clothes, like jeans and shirts and sometimes a long winter coat. I didn't meet him until you were a toddler. A baby, just old enough to crawl and get in trouble. He walked by our house one day, saw your energy and boldness, your....” 

  


and here she paused for dramatic effect, “your cleverness, and decided that even speechless as you were, you were probably better company than most of the world put together.”

  


Toby grinned with joy and innocent childish arrogance, and then wagged a finger at her.

  


“Don't forget, Sarah, he was in love with you, too.”

  


“Ah, yes. So when I lost control and said some words, he took that as a signal. An opportunity to whisk the two of us away, to be companions forever. To meet the fairies and pirates, the goblins and monsters and stone spirits of the Labyrinth.

  


“But I remembered our parents, who also loved us very much. And I knew something else; that humans could never grow old in his kingdom. But they could also never grow up, and no matter how much fun you would have with him, Jareth, in the way of small children you'd forget it straight away.

  


“I knew that if you were to truly become close friends, and enjoy every moment spent in the land of the goblins, that we'd have to escape and come home, so that we'd be able to come back. When you were older.”

  


She stopped, unsure, but Toby was sitting there, smiling. He was sipping his hot chocolate and nodding with certainty. His eyes answered before he spoke, and Sarah felt hope, real hope, settle down into her gut as something she just knew.

  


“I knew it! It all makes sense, now. So when will I be old enough?”

  


She ruffled his hair and explained that when the time came, they'd both know. She didn't dare take Toby to see Jareth until they'd settled his image. If she let him imprint, his faith, strong as it was, just might lock Jareth into that form.

  


Sarah was beginning to warm to the idea of stories, of narrative. Jareth was aware of how he looked, and had even told her a little about his experiences in the void of faith; how he'd swam half awake in dark limbo. If he knew that there was more before, like he'd said, then he might have stories. Ideas of who he truly, really was.

  


So she played the evening through on auto-pilot and settled Toby down into bed. She lay on her own bed, reading, until she heard her parents come home. Then, she let herself stand and walk into the bathroom. She washed her face, solemnly, remebering the day she'd come home drenched in rain. It had stuck, that memory, to the room.

  


She could feel the chill of that day, and the warmth of the shower. She could smell the gusts of warm fog and feel the shower curtain as it billowed upwards against her body, driven by the currents of air into strange shapes.

  


She'd felt like she was encased in a strange new world, insulated from anything outside of the warm white endlessness.

  


But the shower had ended, of course. And she'd moved on, to here, washing her face in the warmth of summer. Cool water sliding down her cheeks. She dried off, and stood facing the door. She was the dreamer, the faithful. She and Toby were, now, both of them. And she could change the Labyrinth and its' ruler.

  


She could do anything, if she believed. And she knew, that the barriers between this world and the other worlds were weak here. She closed her eyes, and opened the door.

  


Like she'd expected, instead of the carpeted hallway, there was the red-gold sunset of the Labyrinth. She stepped out onto the dirt, and felt it crunch beneath her feet. This time around, the glitter was gone, but the dark trees still stood skeletal against the sky. She reached out and shut the door, watched it slip away into nothingness as her hand turned the knob shut.

  


He was, of course, in the castle somewhere, which was annoyingly far away, beyond the maze itself. Relaxing and reading her books. But, she knew, he'd be able to hear her. Probably watched all newcomers to the Labyrinth just in case.

  


“Jareth, come on, I don't want to have to walk sludge from the bog through the castle. Just show me the guest entrance, or whatever.”

  


She stood and waited, and was about to kick at the walls or imagine that all of the pages of her books were blank, but then she finally saw a small crystal floating towards her. It approached nervously, if a bubble of glass could be said to appear nervous. It bobbed and wavered as it drew closer, and eventually settled level with her sternum, hovering in the air. 

  


It didn't approach closer, though, so she reached out a hand, slowly so as not to scare it away, and clasped it between her fingers.

  


It felt solid enough for one moment, a thin shell of glass that was brittle and hard, but then it burst and shattered and shards were flying everywhere around her.

  


They didn't hurt her; they didn't even touch her skin. They vanished away, like the door, like the dreams she'd had since the first time she'd been here. As if it was all in her head, none of it real.

  


She was standing still, shocked, and as she slowly lost track of the strange feeling of having phantom glass shift into nothingness through her palm, she realised that instead of a dull suffusion of red she was in a closed room, with sandstone block walls.

  


She had, she realised, been highly unimaginative with the walls. She'd once seen a big house, open for inspection, that had had huge sandstone brick walls. It had looked like a castle, in her mind.

  


She found herself in a large room, the throne room. The hard chair was empty, and as she turned she saw that Jareth was lounging in the sunken pit on some cushions, reading her dog-eared copy of _Sabriel_. She watched him for a moment, because it was suddenly as if nothing else had been in any way as sudden or as arresting or as world-breakingly confusing as it was to see him there.

  


His hair, which he hadn't seemed to notice quite yet, was now reaching to just below his shoulders. It was a little wavy, and knotted where he'd been lying on it. He hadn't noticed it yet, but a small strand had accidentally stuck itself around one of the buttons on his...

  


She catalogued his clothing. Jeans, a shirt, and a winter coat. But in the way of strange dreams, the jeans were splotchy, as if the dye had run all over. The shirt had strange frills, as if it had yet to throw off the complete concept of frilly glam rock grandeur, and the long coat had small strands of shiny beads and sequins dangling from the pockets and small strange openings. There were epaulets, but, she noted, they were only held on by velcro. Like the ones she'd made for Toby last year, to pretend to be a soldier with.

  


“Jareth, I...”

  


He held up a hand, urgently, and whispered so fiercely and softly that she could have mistaken it for a door opening, or a cat outside, or a house settling in the wind. But there weren't any of those things here, and she heard him clearly.

  


“Two more pages.”

  


She waited patiently, more because it was a very good book than because he deserved to enjoy the moment. Then, carefully and quietly, she crept up behind him, knelt beside the sunken pit, and slowly peeled back the velcro on his left shoulder.

  


He kept reading, so she took it off, leaving him lopsided and looking more ludicrous than before. Sarah decided that it was the normalcy of the clothing that did it. With his exaggerated tights and vests, one more garish garnish just faded into the background, but on a normal long woolen coat the gaudy things looked stupid. She shuffled across, and took the other off a little more quickly, because she could see that he was near the end of the last page of the chapter.

  


She hid them behind a pillar, and told herself sternly to remember to get rid of them, because they were just the sort of thing that he'd get all delighted about having, and he'd wear them all day long if she didn't stop him.

  


Or would he? Was this just another thing that she was projecting onto him? What did she really know about his personal tastes, aside from that they were based on her own. No. no, they weren't. They were based on her conception of his. Fuck it was confusing.

  


He put the book down, and began to stand, but his head was jerked down by his hair, still snarled around the button. It made him stand there, like a statue. It was as if he was afraid that if he moved he'd scare it off. But he took a deep breath, and looked down, and stared at the jeans. The shoes, generic sneakers, really. He patted down his shirt, and stretched his arms out in the coat, which again pulled on his hair. He winced, and glared at the button.

  


Sarah laughed, she couldn't help it, really. He was one of the strangest things she'd ever seen. One of the silliest, because now he was clumsily untangling his hair from the button and then tugging at the ends of all of it, watching the strands fall limply down. Running his fingers from the top of his scalp right down to the ends, flattening them against his skull.

  


He was laughing, too. Smiling at her, and grabbing her arms and then holding her close. He was whispering in her ear,

  


“Sarah, you've done it! Oh, Sarah!”

  


And he was warm, and wonderful. His arms clasped around her back and held her, closer to any other person she'd ever been. She wondered if Toby felt this way when she or their parents held him. Warm and soft and everywhere.

  


She almost took a deep breath in, until she remembered herself and backed away. It was exploitative, and wrong, and manipulative. It felt like masturbation, in a way. Because he wasn't actually in love with her, he couldn't be. Not this way, at least.

  


But he was smiling, so she smiled back, and he laughed again. He waved his hands around at the still familiar room, and exclaimed with more energy than he'd shown since she'd seen him again.

  


“Sarah, you did it! Think, if you could do this in such a short amount of time, what awesome things we could achieve!”

  


“Ah, well, Jareth...”

  


“I mean, we could refurbish this whole place! We could change history!”

  


“Jareth, really! I have to tell you, Toby did it. Well, we did it. Toby still believed in you, you see. And when I told him the story, I could see that it was working. He believes too, and that power helped me to push things in the right direction.”

  


He blinked, stared, and then if it was at all possible began grinning wider than before.

  


“Wonderful! I always knew that he had it in him. Children, as a rule, are so much more clever than adults in these things, but that little one, he was destined for greatness.”

  


Sarah was getting tired of his gushing. His enthusiasm and weird bouncy behaviour were distracting her from her brilliant idea.

  


“Jareth, I...”

  


But he didn't hear her. He was playing with his hair, and showing it off to anyone or thing that he saw. A goblin, a stone gargoyle. The window. He was spinning around and craning his neck to see the coat lift with momentum behind himself.

  


“Oh, just sit down already! I swear, you've got a shorter attention span than Toby sometimes. I had an idea, you see...”

  


But he didn't appear to be listening to her. Sarah swore under her breath and walked off in search of a door. She wasn't going to sit around and listen to his gloating arrogance all night long. She pushed through back into her bathroom, which was much easier this time. She did it without thinking, and only noted dully the softer feel of carpet beneath her feet as she stalked into her room and got ready for bed.

  


She was lying in the dark, telling herself to fall asleep, but found that something in his enthusiasm had sparked a rush of adrealine in her chest.

  


Her breath was coming in shorter gasps, and she could feel her heart racing. Because he was right, in a way. She _had_ done it. She had been the crucible, the catalyst. If she hadn't first lost faith and then regained it, if she hadn't unknowingly loosened her hold on his prison and then pulled him, solid and real, into the world, none of it would have happened.

  


And if it hadn't been for her power over Toby, and Jareth, she'd never have been able to fix things. Even though she'd only effectively moulded superficial aspects of his hair and clothing, she felt strong. Capable. All of the giddy headless fear and doubt she'd felt earlier seemed to have melted away. Here, now, she was undeniably in control and alive. She could almost feel the fibres of her sheets as each shifted in a tangle of threads against her. She could visualise in her mind the way they wove and interlocked. The way that the carpet twisted and looped; the small invisible scraps of oxygen that brushed up against the glass of her window like the fingertips of an eager lover.

  


It _was_ very windy. Dark and stormy again, so strange for summer. But that night in the dark Sarah felt safe and warm and more in control of her destiny, her life, than she had ever been before.

  


She felt at peace, but also electrified and alive. She could float on that feeling all night, she thought, until a bright light and a crowing voice broke into the calm darkness.

  


“Sarah? Sarah, where did you go? And what were you saying? That you had an idea, that's brilliant! Wonderful! Stupendous!”

  


She closed her eyes tightly against the glare and rolled over. Not ten days ago, she'd been feeling useless and alone, and bereft. Cast adrift in the big, empty universe. And now _he _was here. He was annoying, and loud, and overzealous. He was a child who had just learnt how to shout, really properly shout.

  


He was annoying, infuriating, and beautiful, and wonderful, and he hated him for the way the bottom of her gut dropped away when he was near. And for the way that the world only seemed solid and real when the floor was falling away.

  


She pressed another book on him, to shut him up, and went through to the bathroom to wash her face.


	3. Segue 1

Two days after, he sat down opposite her in the kitchens. He knew he had her stuck; if she ran off to hide, her dinner would spoil, or (and this was much more likely) be eaten by someone else. The communal kitchens of Burton and Garran hall were long, and laminated. Fridges stood along the sides like prison cells, the baskets of padlocked food slowly oozing down onto those beneath.

  


Sarah was glad, not for the first time, as she surveyed them, that her basket was on the top. Some of the dripping blood and juice and leftover forgotten gore of soup made her feel ill. Just the thought of it, really, let alone the smell, or the sight, or the taste.

  


Jaredhad a basket on the bottom, by poor luck. He only kept canned drinks and vacuum-sealed food in it, and he ran a sink of soapy water when he wanted to cook. Or he'd share with Sarah, who always cooked enough for two.

  


He cleared his throat, and Sarah looked up from her latin notes.

  


“It'll be ready in another ten minutes,” She stated firmly, then turned back to her conjugations. But he placed his hand down on top of them, and waited until she met his stern gaze.

  


“You didn't finish the story,”

  


He wasn't accusing, but gentle. As if he knew that things were tied in much deeper within her heart than she had let on. Or had she let on? She'd been so wrapped up in remembering it all...

  


Ah, but he was watching her now. She smiled thinly, and shook her head at him. She laughed, thought it came out a little forced.

  


“It wasn't a very good story,” She began, and she started to peel his index finger away from the paper.

  


“I liked it.” He stated, and this time he sounded stern, though he was smiling at her.

  


She frowned, and pouted at him. “You're smudging it.”

  


“It's just 'I love you'.”

  


She froze. She _had_ been that transparent, he was mocking her. She could hear the dismissal in his voice. She decided to pretend confusion. Better than facing up to it.

  


On the stove, her dinner began to sizzle warningly.

  


“What?”

  


“Look, here.” He waggled his index finger, and tapped it on the paper. “Amo; I love you. We did that in first week. It's not as if I'm ruining something vital here.”

  


Oh. Right. She sighed, and then sniffed down her nose at him. “I'm sure that Ms. Minchin would disagree with you. Every verb is sacred.”

  


He laughed, and smiled, and stretched as he stood. He stirred her dinner for her, and she felt lost. He was very familiar and very alien to her, all at once. She'd known him for months, and for no time at all. She knew all of him, and none of him.

  


With all of it, with uni, and moving, and the crazy weather, she wasn't sure whether it was all a bad dream, anyway. Whether she'd convinced herself of it, retroactively.

  


She brushed it aside, and got him to test her on middle verbs while they served the food and rinsed out her saucepan.

  


But when their bowls were half-empty, and the sharper edges had faded from their hunger, he looked at her in earnest again.

  


“Really, I liked hearing it. I want to know what happens to the Goblin King.”

  


She blushed, and fiddled with her spoon.

  


“I didn't tell it properly, at all. Not really. I stuffed most of it up, you know. It was crude.”

  


He stared at her, silently, then turned back to regarding his remaining food.

  


“I didn't think so,”

  


His voice was faint, and forlorn, and plaintive. She knew he would press her, or begin to think about why she was so reluctant to continue it, so she decided to give in. Finish it, maybe change a few bits, and then he'd get over it, and move on.

  


“Alright. So when I left off, she had just saved the Goblin King from his own wardrobe, and...”

  


Jared stood, and picked up his bowl.

  


“Sarah, please. I mean... last time, in your room... fuck that sounded dirty.”

  


He closed his eyes, and collected himself.

  


“Right. Look, this is just _not_ the sort of place for a story like this.”

  


She looked around the long, black-grey room with its' endless benches, and sighed. He was right, of course. So they finished their meal in silence, and then walked together up the stairs to her room. Everything was suddenly solemn, and awkward. So she picked up again, almost jokingly.

  


  


“So, like I said, having rescued the Goblin King from his glam-rock tights-and-eye-makeup disater, she had begun to share the literature of her time with him.”

  


As she spoke, things felt easier. He boiled the kettle he'd bought her – because everyone needs tea – and grabbed two mugs from the shelf on the wall. Then he curled up beside her on her bed, pulling the duvet over their legs.

  


“Things were looking positive for his future, and the future of their now shared goals. However, in her own life, she felt much less secure...”


	4. Chapter 2

She felt considerably more stable that day than she did any of those previously. When Karen had looked at her over breakfast, not mentioning college or work, but wearing that exhausted and frustrated grimace that explained it all, Sarah hadn't stormed off, or even turned away, but stared evenly across the table at her.

  


“Annie rang for you last night,” Karen began, but she stopped when Sarah felt her eyes tighten. It still hurt. They ate in silence, for the rest of the meal.

  


“What about Australia?” Sarah asked, casually, as she finally turned away to pick up her and Toby's bowls.

  


“What? Sarah, if you're trying to distract me from...”

  


“I'm not,” She replied, evenly, feeling smooth and flat and in complete control. “Australian colleges don't start until February, right? And their applications aren't due in for a few more months, so if I can get in, if we can afford it, it's an option. Could you think about it, please?”

  


Karen seemed to teeter on the brink of astonishment, anger, hope, and something ineffable, before she could pull upon her parent-mask. She smiled, brightly, proudly, at Sarah. And for once, perhaps the first time ever, Sarah realised that Karen had always done this. Had put on happiness and anger and sternness and hope at certain times. That perhaps Karen had done a lot more parenting, and had cared a lot more about Sarah, than she'd been aware of.

  


“I, I will Sarah. I, honey, can I talk to you about this after dinner?”

  


Sarah looked at Karen, poured herself a glass of juice, and sighed inwardly. Nope, same old Karen. Love ya, Sarah, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my day...

  


“I'll bring home some pamphlets, and then you can approach your father with an estimate of how much it will cost. If you know what degree you want, how long it takes, where you have to go, then he'll be more likely to agree.”

  


“How much what will cost?”

  


Karen brought her own plate over to the sink and nudged Sarah playfully in the ribs.

  


“You're a goose, Sarah. Tuition, of course, but also the flights there and back, which will be once a year for Christmas. The rent, the books, the cost of living. It'll be very different depending on which place you go to.”

  


“But Karen, I only just thought of it....”

  


Karen wiggled her eyebrows, and smiled broadly at her, then moved off to gather her things for the day. It wasn't an I'm-a-stepmother smile, just a friendly, we've-got-this-awesome-secret smile. It was much nicer than the similar smiles Sarah had shared with people at school.

  


She leant back against the sink, letting an elbow fall into the sudsy water, and felt morning sunlight warm her back.

  


So she wasn't a failure. So she _could_ have a plan, even one pulled together at the very last minute. And she could get away from everyone at school, and escape what she'd really been scared of when she'd chickened out of college applications. Of stagnating in this small place, of becoming the uneducated white trash she saw in the supermarkets. Of waking up one morning and finding her feet stuck solidly into the ground, and perhaps her head as well, like one of those ludicrous cartoon birds.

  


She felt light, and airy, and bubbling over with it all. Think of all the choices. Which degree, which city, which dorm. A fresh, clean start, with fresh, intersting people.

  


“Well, fuck!”

  


But as she walked happily towards the stairs, and rounded the corner, and saw the hallway full of doors, she felt her high come dripping down. Soggy cardboard dreamhouse, it was. Before she could even think of moving into another country, she had to sort out this labyrinth thing. 

  


She'd managed, so far - in part just to avoid chores, in part to escape Jareth on occasion - to get a good handle on stepping through doors.

  


They had to be doors, real doors. With handles. No archways or sliding doors, like the one in the ensuite in the master bedroom. They had to be upstairs, in the house. No windows, or front doors.

  


It wasn't a trick she could take with her across the street, let alone overseas and into a crammed dorm room. The thought of trying to deal with Jareth, and maybe Hoggle, or a stray fairy, in a shared room, or a small room, was enough to wince. She could imagine the headaches, the noise, the claustrophobic feeling.

  


A fairy had tagged along two nights ago. The little bitch had gotten tangled up in Sarah's hair, because she'd been dropping past the front gate of the Labyrinth. She'd remembered the worm, and was curious about whether one could get out of the Labyrinth that way, if one was the subconscious storytelling, world-bending faithful... what? Maybe priestess? She had no idea how old the magic was that chained her to the Labyrinth and Jareth. Anyway, she'd wondered if she could find the vanishing door, and if she could, if then she could use it like the doors in the castle, to get back to the real world.

  


She'd stepped through, and emerged in the bathroom thankfully, with a head of hair full of outraged angry little fairy. Sarah had swung her hair around, and hit the shitty little thing against the door, squashing it flat, but she'd had to explain about the noise. And had had to wipe off the mess.

  


What warped part of her mind had made those little things up? Maybe they were symbols for the girls at school. Or her own internal conflict. The little nasty, prickish, selfish side of the feminine that got brushed outside of social awareness when one grew up. The angry, hideous, bitter little inner self. Boys seemed to be either too apathetic, or perhaps too used to their own mothers, to ever develop a similar inner bitch.

  


Sarah sighed, and walked forwards from where she'd stopped in the hallway. Stalling wasn't going to make the day move any faster. It was stalling, after all, because despite all her practice and advancement, she was no closer to “fixing” the labyrinth completely. It was stalling because until she did, she couldn't move on and face the tremendous effort of college.

  


Sighing to herself, again, for good measure, she picked up a stack of secondhand books in her bedroom, slung them into a backpack, and opened her door again.

  


She'd decided to just pop out wherever Jareth was at that point in time, just to see if she could drop into unknown places, but she was foiled. He was lounging in the pit again, reading.

  


“Oh, come on! How am I supposed to test whether or not I can step through into other parts of the Labyrinth, parts I'm not thinking about, if all you do is sit in here? I need to anchor my thoughts, and...”

  


He turned, frowned at her, and turned back to his book. So she unloaded the ones from her bag, and walked back out into reality. She didn't really have anything to do, because Toby was at daycare, for socialisation, as Karen put it, despite Sarah being home all day. She wouldn't have to pick him up until 3.

  


She lay down on her bed and stared at the roof. Sometimes, being the only person who believed in the Labyrinth – aside from Toby – was exasperating. Since the breakthrough with Toby, she'd had next to no luck at all at changing things. Without Jareth's insistent, desperate begging, she didn't feel that pressured into doing anything, anyway.

  


Home was boring. She checked the time on her alarm clock and synchronised her watch, to the second, with it. She'd been curious about the passage of time, and whether her relationship with the existence of the labyrinth could affect it like Jareth had during her race against time. Or whether things just worked differently, in there.

  


So off she went again, chosing somewhere isolated and quiet. The hedgemaze, yes. She walked nonchalantly to the door, and practised her spin. She'd decided, once the time-and-space vertigo had become familiar, and the shock of it all had worn off, that she'd learn to make as spectacular an entrance as Jareth. It was, after all, almost a once-in-a-lifetime chance to look considerably cooler than most people ever got to.

  


She stumbled on a rising flagstone, but recovered nicely, and pulled her other foot forwards, shaking it, as if to flick away the remaining atmosphere of her normal house. Then she just sat, and watched the sky. Which grew boring soon.

  


She checked her watch, and it had only been a minute, so she picked at her nails and closed her eyes. She wanted to stay for at least five minutes, to see if it affected anything.

  


Damn, but it was quiet. And slow.

  


In all her rush that other time, she'd never realised how slow time passed in the labyrinth. She'd been running so fast that she'd never noticed how soft the breeze felt, or how many voices there were.

  


“Oi, get back here, you trollop!”

  


“Oh, I should _not_ have eaten that mushroom... bleargh!”

  


“Thas' mine, that is! Give it back, or I'll tell on you.”

  


Sarah frowned. There were a lot of voices, a lot of creatures here. She hadn't expected so many, which made her confused. Obviously either her subconscious, or Toby, had put them all there. Or, perhaps worse, the universe allowed for things to breed outside of her control. Not a bad thing, but when one was supposed to be playing puppet-master, it did help to be able to trust one's own omnipotence. Or was it Omniscience?

  


Sarah had been using so many of those words in the last few days, in her head, that they blurred together and fused into one big lump of confusing.

  


That was two minutes, there.

  


She pulled out her notepad and added a note. She was making a list of things to ask Jareth, or to confirm. She couldn't think of any other way to feel her way around the situation.

  


  1. How large is this place?

  2. Find out how time passes

  3. Find out about food

  4. Where did Jareth come from, before all this?

  5. Why does he like Garth Nix novels so much?  
  


She added number 6. to the list; Does Jareth age?

  


Then 7. Does he use the bathroom, or eat?

  


  


Four minutes.

  


She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, and walked around the small corner of the hedgemaze she was in. She walked around it again, slower, placing her feet one in front of the other, making sure to avoid the cracks.

  


Four and a half minutes.

  


She stood on her tiptoes and tried to see over the top of the hedge. She jumped. Then she sat down again.

  


Five minutes, finally. If she was going to continue these investigations, she'd have to get herself a book to read, or perhaps find her old gameboy. She turned back to the archway she'd used to get there, and sidled around it, letting her eyes unfocus. The stones and foliage of the hedgemaze fuzzed into nothing, and resolved back into the carpet and wallpaper of the upstairs hallway. She stepped back into her room, and matched her watch to the alarm clock.

  


No difference, which was equal parts releiving and disappointing. Relieving, because she could know for sure she wouldn't be late to pick up Toby, and disappointing, because she still didn't know whether or not time moved or behaved differently.

  


She sat down on her bed and stared at the roof, and let her mind wander. She felt aimless, and idle. The day felt like it had already lasted three or four, and it hadn't even been lunch yet.

  


_If you've done three impossible things,_ She laughed to herself, _Try breakfast at Milliway's, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe..._

  


She would have fell into a nostalgic daydream about Hotblack Desiato, and segued to Dirk Gently, but was interrupted by an outraged squawk. 

  


Jareth hovered over her bed, scowling.

  


“How dare you bring me _Hogfather, _but not _Mort, _or even _Soul Music_? How could you, Sarah?!”

  


He collapsed in despair beside her on the bed.

  


“What? And how? And since when do you squawk?”

  


He ignored her, and pouted at the ceiling.

  


“Oh, behave yourself,” She said, and he relaxed his face.

  


“Thanks,” He smiled, suddenly looking very exhausted.

  


“Huh? Oh, right. No worries. I'll try to stop thinking of you as a whiny drama queen, yeah?”

  


“Yeah, thanks.”

  


They lay in silence, Sarah mainly feeling confused and overwhelmed by everything again. The more she moved forwards with everything, the more things felt like they were stagnating.

  


“So how did you get up to that book? I thought you were still in the middle of _Sabriel_...”

  


“So you'll get it for me anyway, right? The book, I mean...”

  


They spoke at the same time, and then trailed off into silence again. Sarah could feel his hip against hers, lump and rough with the jeans she'd thought up for him. She was screaming inside her head, trying to get her hindbrain to shut off. Because she was still head-over heels for him, in some way, and if anything happened, it would feel like rape, or some twisted masturbation.

  


He smiled, and brushed his hand against her wrist.

  


“I've been reading for hours, since you left. But it takes you ages to find the books, so I dropped in at the earliest moment I could. I would've got here sooner, but you were hopping in and out and everything...”

  


Oh. Her watch, right. She held it up, and looked at it.

  


“So you knew that I was...? But, wait! You said you would have got here sooner?”

  


He smiled, and curled himself up and off of the bed. His new, slouching, way of carrying himself made him look a very different man.

  


“You've been trying to travel through time, little girl. But you've been using a watch, not your head. If five minutes have passed, and you've kept track of that, when on earth do you_ expect_ you'd get back?”

  


He left, waving, and reminded her one last time to pick up some more books for him. Please.

  


She thought about it, letting his words sink into her mind.

  


So he'd travelled back from, presumably, this afternoon, in the labyrinth? Or had he just rushed it forwards, pushing time along in there into a tight bundle, and then stepping out here?

  


Oh. So it was like the doors, really. It wasn't about timing, or even control, really. Just aiming. Not here, but the labyrinth. Things could take as much or as little time as she wanted them to. It was just her expectations that held her back. Thinking five minutes had passed, and coming back. She could tell herself she would get there an hour later, and she would. Because it was really just her hanging in her pocket of unreality.

  


In a way.

  


Anyway, it made sense. Though she doubted she could go back in time. Probably just forwards.

  


She wondered if Jareth could, and thought of asking him. She wanted to see him again, but it was that dangerous feeling. It started down beneath her stomach. She knew it was dangerous. So instead she called up the library, got them to put a request out into the system for _Wyrd Sisters_ and _Mort _and _Soul Music_, and made herself a sandwich.

  


She did wonder a little, why he was so very into books. Admittedly, Sarah loved reading, and always had, but she'd never really anticipated the Goblin King being literate, let alone being able to read books. Of course, luckily, she'd discovered that he could read before she forced her misconceptions on him.

  


Sarah moved into the living room, and turned the TV on. She stretched out on the couch, and yawned. The day was taking a very long time to be over. She still had three hours left till it was time to pick up Toby.

  


Dr. Who was on. Not the more recent stuff, but an old one. Susan was leaving her grandfather. Sarah wondered if Jareth would ever have the chance to watch TV, like this, and understand the references that were implicit in the books he was about to read.

  


Everyone left the Doctor, in the end. Nobody stayed forever. But he surrounded himself with humans, because he was so lonely.

  


Oh.

  


Sarah was getting a bit weary of her epiphanies. They didn't really help her get any closer to making things right in the labyrinth, or with Jareth. So he was lonely, even with the goblins. Reading must take that away, for a while.

  


She wished she had a way of making him less lonely, helping him meet new entities and making friends. She'd move into the labyrinth herself – God knew she was sick of this place – but it would be like rape. Or masturbation. Whatever it was, it'd be dangerous for her, too tempting. Because he was still handsome, and confident, and sweet, and cute.

  


She turned off the TV in anger, and made herself a cup of coffee. These cyclical arguments inside her head were getting her _nowhere_.

  


Maybe she could find another anthropomorphic being and bring it over to the labyrinth?

  


Maybe she could talk Toby into believing in a Goblin Queen?

  


Maybe it should be a Goblin Nephew, or Goblin Brother instead...

  


Maybe she should just stop wishing and dreaming about half-formed crushes, and stop exploiting Jareth's attention, and just get on with everything.

  


But she didn't want to get on with everything, not deep down. That would mean leaving the labyrinth alone, and possibly never seeing Jareth again. Which was awful.

  


It wasn't until Toby had his hand in hers, and was chatting to her on the way home, that her thoughts really began to clarify themselves into a useable plan.

  


Toby was talking about dress-ups, and monsters, and how someone had told him about _The Little Mermaid_, from a book of fairy tales. About how all she wanted to do, ever, was become human. Then it spun into focus, like reality did after she came back from over there.

  


Everything just suddenly made sense. She didn't have to fix his magical self, or move time and space and the labyrinth. If she could find a way to make _him_ human, it would solve everything. Maybe, he'd even like her, really, truly be able to love her.

  


But then she stumbled, and felt Toby tugging at her arm, urging her to “come on, slowpoke”.

  


How on earth was she supposed to accomplish _that?_

  


  



	5. Segue 2

The day after that, they walked into Civic together and shared a plate of nachos at a cafe. As they picked over the guacamole and sour cream with their cornchips, and Sarah grumbled half-heartedly about how there was no really edible Mexican food to be had in the whole city, the world moved on around them.

  


She was tired, because of staying up so late, to tell the story. She'd agreed to continue that very next night, however, if he agreed to shout her to dinner. This wasn't, of course, what she'd hoped for. She'd wanted, ideally, a nice restaurant, or at least a cafe, at night, with drinks and gentility. It was what people did back home. It was courtesy.

  


He'd laughed, and slapped her on the back, and explained that people weren't so scared of sex, either here or in London, that they felt so pressed to make a nice impression. And although she'd been taken aback at the time, when they had eaten for a while, and poured the last overbrewed dregs of tea out into their cups, she had to agree that there was something to this.

  


There was no way that a formal dinner out, with dressing up and formal behaviour and pulling out chairs could equal this for intimacy, or comfort. It was more relaxed, and she felt that she was learning more about Jared from his gestures and words, even though they'd lived practically together for a term, than she ever could from her dinner out.

  


It was, though, really early. He'd tried to justify it by explaining that “dinner” can mean lunch just as easily in “proper English”, but she knew the truth. It was cheaper, significantly cheaper, to eat a late lunch than it was to eat a dinner. It was easier to get tables, easier to linger after finishing, and by the time they walked back to the hall, it would still be early enough that they'd be able to miss the obnoxiously drunk crowd around Mooseheads.

  


He sipped cold bitter tea, and she scraped at some more guacamole with a chip. They'd run out of conversation, and were just sitting there quietly.

  


_I missed you,_

  


She wasn't sure whether he'd said it aloud, or if she'd said it, or just thought it. But it scared her again.

  


“Sarah?”

  


“Yes?”

  


Jared was watching her worriedly, and had taken her hand in his.

  


“Are you alright? You went very pale, all of a sudden...”

  


She shook her head to clear it, and took a deep breath in. She let it out. Her arms shook as she exhaled, and she was surprised at how unsteady she was.

  


“I thought maybe I should keep the story going, now that we've eaten,” She covered, “But I'm so exhausted from that last essay that I don't think I'm up to the walk home yet.”

  


He smiled, perhaps in relief? She couldn't focus very well. She heard him leave, and then come back with another bottle of water. She drank her glassful slowly, and as she finished a waitress brought them two small cups of coffee.

  


“Oh, Jared...”

  


They usually shared a plunger, if they ever had coffee. One coffee each was expensive, exorbitant.

  


“Even though it'll taste about one thousand times better than your American swill, I thought it'd make you feel better. My treat, of course.”

  


She sipped her drink, warm and comforting. Maybe Australia just got milder beans, she thought to herself.

  


“And,” he continued, in a softer, conspiratotiral tone, “As this is a cafe for beatniks, students, and those who don't mind waiting an hour for service, I think it is the perfect place for a story. I don't think anyone will bother eavesdropping.”

  


She finished her coffee, and felt the warmth settle heavily and comfortably in her stomach. She stretched her arms, poured both of them another glass of water, and picked up a packet of sugar to fiddle with.

  


“So,” She began, “Think about this sugar packet. The girl was planning on trying to make the Goblin King real. Live. Human.”

  


She paused, and flicked at the packet with her free hand. The sugar grains shook.

  


“She contacted someone from her past, who had done her wrong. It was almost karmic, in a way. She wanted to know about life force, and energy, and ways to channel it. So she went for a walk, and visited a witch,”

  


Jared frowned, and tapped his finger against his cup irritably.

  


“I don't remember a witch,” He said.

  


Sarah shook her finger at him.

  


“Why should you? It's _my_ story, after all.”

  


Jared looked abashed for a moment, and Sarah made a note to herself to ask about that later. Could he possibly remember something?

  


She pushed her thoughts aside, and continued.

  


“She wanted to be careful, because the energy of the Goblin King and his labyrinth were not unlike the grains of sugar here. And our heroine was going to attempt to reach in through the diaphanous membrane that held the energy together, and pull out not a scatter of small grains, but a thin strand of... er...”

  


He laughed, and smiled. “Ah... um... treacle?”

  


“No, not treacle. Goodness, no!” She stuck her tongue out, and thought for a moment.

  


“Like gelatin. She wanted to draw him out like gelatin, and set him inside a mold, and let him set solid in his new form.”

  


  



	6. Chapter 3

Sarah found conversations with Annie difficult. She could have said “Look, I don't like you anymore. You broke my things, ruined my sketches, and exposed my secret daydreams to the entire school body. I trused you, now I don't.”

  


Or any of her other hundred thousand practiced spiels. She'd been composing them in her head since the day she'd been ruined, and embarrassed. Since the day she'd met Jareth again. Cold and wet and alone in the mall. Angry at the world.

  


Revisiting her emotions made Sarah wonder if she was in this, all of this, as a way of escape from reality. But, as she reasoned, Annie wasn't really a friend worth having. Sarah was moving on, and dealing with real challenges.

  


Annie had gotten herself a job at the video store, and was moving up in her coven. Which was why Sarah had called her in the first place. If anyone knew how to transmute energy or trick something into being something else, surely it would be a pagan?

  


At the very least, Sarah reasoned, Annie and her friends would have read a lot of the books that she'd want to find, and could direct her research. Save her time.

  


College applications for Australia were about to open. Sarah didn't have much more time left. So she was sitting in the park, smiling, and talking to Annie.

  


They were waiting for the coven to arrive, so that Sarah could meet them all. They were going to help her understand ritual and circles and power, which Sarah thought was perhaps a load of bunk, but it would give her the framework to start believing that she could convert an anthropomorphic being into a real human.

  


She had to start with faith in herself, and forwards momentum, or nothing at all would ever happen, and she'd be stuck here. She turned to Annie, and smiled amicably.

  


_

  


“_What, you're stopping?”_

  


_Jared blinked at Sarah, across the table. Sarah stared back at him. When she had started to talk about the coven meeting, even using the nameless generic characters to avoid recognition, his eyes had suddenly become hungry and dark._

  


“_Yeah. I don't think I want to tell that part of the story. It doesn't really matter that much. What matters most is that our protagonist developed, with the help of her erstwhile friend, a ritual to use to humanise the Goblin King.”_

  


_Sarah rubbed her eyes, and poured herself another glass of water. Jared ordered another pot of tea, and she wondered for a moment where he had gotten the cash, to be able to afford so many things. She shook it off, determined to push onwards, and finish the story._

  


“_So, with the right words and shapes and thoughts in her mind, she returned home, and...”_

  


_She shook her head, and leant down on the table. She'd drawn a complete blank. Things did not want to work for her today. Her feeling of discomfort and unease increased. Jared's dark eyes, that look, sat in her stomach with the coffee, twisting her insides._

  


“_So she left the coven, and went back to her family house...”_

  


_Again, it just wasn't working. Sarah sighed, and leant her head down on her arms._

  


_Jared walked around behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. For a moment, she was tense and sure he was about to try something awful, perhaps beat the truth of the ritual out of her, but instead he pressed downwards._

  


_His fingers were warm, like always, and they kneaded a familiar pattern into her muscles._

  


“_What on _earth_ have you been thinking about, Sarah? Your neck is harder than a brick!”_

  


_He muttered about posture and stress management, as his fingers pushed at her until all the awful feelings bled away. She hadn't realised she'd felt so ill, almost about to vomit, until the pain drained away, and her gut settled._

  


_Sarah took a deep breath in, when he had sat down again to pour their tea, and felt her body relax into itself. She felt centred and safe again. Jared was warm and calm and had completely lost the predatory look his eyes had held earlier._

  


“_So, she returned to her family home, and to her Goblin King.”_

  


_Jared smirked, and pushed her tea across the small table._

  


“_Oh, so it's _her_ Goblin King now, is it?”_

  


“_Well, technically, yes. And shut up, I'm telling the story now.”_

  


_

  


Knowing where to look wasn't as helpful as Sarah had thought it would be. She knew how to find the words, and the circles to draw, and it wasn't that difficult, after all. But doing it herself was gut-wrenchingly scary.

  


She knew what she had to do, and what she risked.

  


But it was what he wanted, right? He wanted it. Maybe. To be human. Before she took things any further, she had to find out.

  


Sarah showered first, and changed her clothes, just in case, before she stepped through the linen closet and into wherever Jareth was.

  


He was on top of a wall, sitting and kicking his legs against the stone, with a book in his hand. Sarah tiptoed along the wall towards him, and then sat down herself.

  


She cleared her throat.

  


She snatched the book from his hands, and threw it down onto the pavement below. Then she held his wrist, and made him look at her.

  


“You don't like it here, do you?”

  


His eyes met hers, and they seemed to search hers for something, before he answered.

  


“No.”

  


“I didn't think so. Do you want to be human?”

  


He sighed, and turned away again.

  


“I only really want one thing, at all, ever, Sarah.”

  


She was confused.

  


“I don't know what you mean. Do you mean the books? If you were human, you know, you could...”

  


Jareth was angry, or frustrated, she couldn't really tell. But he was turning his hand in her wrist, and clasping her own. Sarah felt her heart beat faster, and she looked around carefully. She needed an archway or a door to get back, still. Where were all the archways?

  


He pulled, not gently, on her arm. His eyes were stern, and intense, and Sarah felt as if she was a little girl again, facing up against the Goblin King.

  


Then she realised, that she hadn't thought of Jareth as the Goblin King in a very long time. Partly because his hair had changed, and his clothing. His demeanour, in some ways. Because he'd changed so much, and somehow very little at all.

  


What hadn't changed? She had time to think about it, and it took her mind off of how he was looking at her. She turned her head away, and thought about it. He was still arrogant, and cruel in some ways. He was what... He was...

  


He shook his head, and let her go. His eyes and face softened, and then sunk a little. He looked exhausted. Sarah looked down at her wrist, and felt the air cool against them. His hands had been very warm.

  


But she shouldn't think about things like that. She stood, wordlessly, and ran along the wall away from him until she found an archway.

  


Straight back into the shower, she went. She stood in the hot water for a while, watching it run over her arms and breasts. She'd realised it, when she was running. It made her think about how nobody had seen her breasts, or naked armpits, or belly, or anything, in a long time. Not since she was a child.

  


How could he still love her? She was ruining everything with her stupid girl-crush. Forcing him into it. She didn't even know if she ever wanted sex, or to show someone else her body. Like this, with the water running all over it. Vulnerable and intimate and human.

  


She had to show him what life was like, as a human. Yes, that was it. If she made him human, he'd be free to make his own decisions.

  


If he was human, she'd be able to love him without feeling guilty, and to accept his love without feeling dirty and wrong inside.

  


No. It was about his rights. If he was human, he'd be free. He'd never be alone again. He'd have a family, she'd make one. He'd have friends and maybe even a pet. He'd be able to read whatever books he wanted to.

  


It was all in her head, now. The circles, and the sigils, and the plan. Right down to the star-maps, for the right time of day. And Sarah knew that she had the power to do this, now. That she could, and that the framework was just that; framework. She could do this.

  


She dried herself off, and got dressed again. She dressed as if she was going to go on a date, out to dinner, all fancy and beautiful and made up, and she stepped back into the throne-room. She knew he'd be there, sulking.

  


He'd tried to tell her that he still loved her, and she'd rejected him. Of course he would be here.

  
Sarah strode around the quiet room until she found him, sitting on the sill of a window.

  


She smiled, and let herself drop into it. She had to fall, and surrender, or she wouldn't get close enough. It was easy enough to let go for a few minutes, and put her hand on his shoulder. Even easier to smile, and shuffle closer, and tentatively brush her lips against his.

  


He clasped her to his side, smiling against her lips, and wrapping his arms around her. It felt surreal, and dreamlike. It felt real, far too real, to ever be real.

  


Then she placed a hand against his heart, and closed her eyes. She could feel the warmth of his heart, and his energy.

  


Sarah touched his skin with her hand, and then drew back. She let her nervousness overcome her mind, and she stuttered and blushed.

  


“I... I... fuck. That was, I... you...”

  


Then she shook her head, as if to clear it.

  


“I need time...”

  


She choked out, which was true enough. The thought of lying to him was horrifying. Then she stepped back through the door, and into her room. To throw him off of her scent, she strode down the hallway and came back in, to the long path near the labyrinth gate, through Toby's bedroom door.

  


She trailed her hand along the stones, almost saying goodbye. She could go to each of the creatures at once, but it was quicker and safer to just do this. Sarah knew she had the power, she repeated it to herself in her head. Then she pressed into the stone. She began to draw on the energy of it all. Not the shape, or the form, but the ageless energy of faith that she and countless others had fed this place on.

  


Twilight fell, finally, into night. She could hear the weak cries of the goblins and other animals. She could hear Ludo, and Hoggle, and even the little worm, calling out in confusion and pain. 

  


Sarah felt the wall of the labyrinth beneath her fingers for the last time. She felt it, solid, rough, beneath her fingertips. Then, with a heartbreaking push, she thrust her arms out to either side. They stretched at the fabric of the Underground for a moment, and then she felt, within the rough rubbery half-truth, a handhold. She grabbed at it, and pulled. The pure energy of it shone brightly in the dark. It almost blinded her.

  


He didn't know, what she was doing. He had no idea, and after what she'd done to him earlier, this could only feel like betrayal.

  


Still, she had to do it. But when she saw him, running around the corner, his eyes widened in confusion and disbelief and pain, she choked. Almost gave up, right then.

  


But she had to finish it, now, before she was too weak to try again. Sarah pulled, and pulled, and pulled. He didn't scream, though she knew it hurt him; it was burning hot against her hands, against her whole body now. The energy felt like cold fire on her skin. It undoubtebly felt worse inside his... body? He didn't have a body, anymore. Inside his soul, perhaps.

  


And then it was quiet. She fell, exhausted, onto the carpet of her bedroom. The world felt unnaturally solid and heavy compared to the world she'd just destroyed. But she had to check, right now. She'd written it, Toby had trusted in it, and if it had worked he would be there.

  


She stood, still shaky from her exertions, and moved over to her computer. If she was right, then he'd be there, online. Because they'd met, years ago, and they'd catch up online, every Wednesday night. He'd be there, unless she'd failed. She'd designed it in her head, channelled the energy, just for this.

  


He wasn't there. She blinked, and rebooted. Perhaps it had frozen. But it hadn't. Fuck! Well, maybe he was late. Maybe his parents were making him do chores, or pack. He'd saved up money, he was coming to visit her next month. For a year, he was going to stay here, with her. He'd promised, in her story. He'd take a gap year, and they'd just spend time together and get ready for college.

  


And if it had worked, he would be there. Still, maybe in ten minutes. Give it ten mintues, she told herself. Ten minutes, and he'd be there, for sure. Or the next, maybe. It's only ten minutes, and it'd be a shame to miss him for a simple ten minutes...

  


It was so cold. She was exhausted, and drained, and summer was beginning to fade. She wrapperd herself in a blanket, and sat dejectedly down on her bed.

  


So, she'd failed. But maybe things were just back to normal? Maybe he was still there. Maybe the labyrinth had re-asserted itself, rebuilt itself from all the energy she'd taken. She turned to her dresser, and called out their names, all of them that she remembered. There was no answer, so she turned back to her computer screen and stared blankly at the electric blaring buzz.

  


White noise, with nobody online. She began whispering his name, at first. Then she shouted it out, calling. Her family had left earlier that day, gone off for a trip. She'd stayed home, and now she was all alone. In the dark, and cold.

  


And he was never coming, never answering her, and she was falling to the carpet and crying and aching. The pressure of tears was building up in her brain faster than they could spill down her face, and her head ached with the tension. She was scratching at her legs, her hair. Restless, trying to get out of her skin. She had to have enough energy left to call him. If she put enough energy in, enough faith, she'd be able to bring him back.

  


She screamed his name, as loud as she could, over and over again, until she...

  


  


  



	7. Epilogue

They'd started walking back to the hall while she spoke. Jared guided her, his arm linked in hers. When she felt her chest begin to tighten, and found she couldn't tell any more of the story, he stopped walking, and simply wrapped his arms around her.

  


Sarah felt her whole world spinning away from her, so she stood still and felt herself float. She felt confused, and adrift. She felt like she had that moment last year, when she'd sat staring at the computer screen. Like all the hope and security in the whole world had vanished.

  


Then she recovered herself, a little, and walked on. He followed, and didn't talk. She didn't feel like she had the power, then, to open her mouth. So she walked on slowly, passing the trees and buildings, winding past the library and up the stairs beside the science buildings.

  


When they got back to the hall, they walked up the stairs in tandem, but when they reached the landing, Sarah felt the fear that had been pressing at the back of her mind take over completely. She ran, scared of something unamable, and fumbled her door open, slamming it shut behind her.

  


She lay against it, and pushed downwards against her feet, till her body rose and pressed painfully into the wooden door. The pain helped, somehow. Pushing helped. Like screaming, or crying, without noise. She couldn't leave the room, and she was sure he'd hear her if she cried.

  


Had she succeeded, or was she going mad? Had she imagined it all, in her dreams?

  


It felt real, but so very real that she found herself doubting it. Too solid, too perfect. Impossible.

  


She heard his kettle boil, next door. He pushed some things around, and placed two mugs on his desk.

  


Sarah sunk down onto the floor, balled her hands into fists, and stretched them outwards until they connected with the sink on her left, and the wardrobe on her right. She felt as if her whole body was stretched too tight, full up of all these awful feelings. So many that she had trouble feeling any of them at all. So many that tears were pushed out of her eyes, and her muscles shook with it.

  


He was knocking on her wall, and then – she could hear him – he opened his door, picked up the mugs, and pulled it shut with his toe. He shuffled down the hall, and then rested his back against her door.

  


“I don't know what's wrong, Sarah. But I've made some peppermint tea, to calm you down.”

  


She couldn't answer. But something broke inside, and she bent her head until it rested on her knees. Her hair fell around her face, and she was cocooned in darkness. She cried.

  


Time passed. Sarah had no idea how much time, but enough for Jared to feel stiff, stretch, and then call through,

  


“It's gone cold now, and I'm getting in the way a bit much. So I'm going into my room. Sarah, if it's anything I've done, I...”

  


He stopped talking, sighed, and left. Sarah felt drained and puffy and sore, and exhausted. She curled up on the floor and slept.

  


When she woke up it was dark. She could hear her phone ringing. Dazed and half-aware, she picked it up.

  


“...Sarah? Are you okay?”

  


Things seemed less charged, and awful, now that she had slept.

  


“Yeah,” Her voice came out much weaker and wavier than she had hoped.

  


He laughed, relieved, and she could almost imagine his hand, reaching up to tuck some hair back behind his ear, a nervous habit.

  


“I don't know what's happened today, but I feel like we've had a huge argument, or something, without my knowing it. I mean, I felt angry at you for a while, and I had no idea why. And then it seemed like you were royally pissed at me, or scared, or something...”

  


She didn't know what to say to that.

  


“Jared, I... I'm sorry.”

  


“Look,” He interrupted, “Come over. It's stupid to do this over the phone.”

  


He hung up before she could respond, so she picked up her keys and went next door. His door was unlocked, so she locked it behind her. Neighbours would drop in unannounced regularly, in their block.

  


He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He sighed, swore under his breath, and ran his hands through his hair.

  


“Shit. Fuck. Okay, Sarah, I...”

  


He swung around on the bed, knocking a book to the floor. _Sabriel_. He took her hands in his, and looked up into her eyes.

  


“Look, Sarah, I've tried to do this like you wanted. Forget it all. But I just can't stand being so close to you and not...”

  


He shook his head, and started again.

  


“I can't pretend not to know, you know? I can see you're struggling, too, even though you're stubborn as fuck. And I'm sick of hearing that stupid name in your voice.”

  


He rubbed his hands over his face, as if to rub the slate clean.

  


“Because I like hearing you say my name, you know? Ah, fuck it...”

  


His grip on her hands tightened, and Sarah couldn't do much more than blink before he pulled her forwards and kissed her.

  


As kisses went, it was sloppy. And awkward. Bony, and the wrong angle. But things seemed to slip into place in her mind, more than anything else. It wasn't the end, like she'd been worried it was, but a beginning. A wonderful beginning, with hugs and calming peppermint tea, and horrible tiny rooms.

  


“Jareth?”

  


“Mmm. Oh, sorry, what?”

  


“It's your turn to tell me a story, tomorrow.”


End file.
